The hut amused the squatter. He called it a colourable imitation. But it did not delight him as it had delighted Jack; the master bushman failed to share his old hand's sentimental regard for all that pertained to the bush. Dalrymple sat on the bunk and smoked a cigar, a cynical spectator of some simple passages between Jack and his cats. Livingstone was exhibited with great pride; he had put on flesh in the old country; at which the squatter remarked that had he stayed on Carara, he would have put on an ounce of lead.
"You're a wonderful man, Jack!" he exclaimed at length. "I wouldn't have believed a fellow could take a windfall as you have done, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I used to think of you a good deal after you had gone. I thought of you playing the deuce to any extent, but I must say I little dreamt of your building a bush hut to get back to your old way of life! I pictured the town crimson and the country carmine—both painted by you—but I never imagined this!"
And he looked round the hut in his amused, sardonic way; but there was a ring—or perhaps it was only a suspicion—of disappointment in his tone. The next words were merely perplexed.
"And yet," added Dalrymple, "you profess yourself well pleased with your lot!"
"So I am—now."
"I begin to wish I hadn't changed my mind about going this afternoon."
"Why, on earth?"
"Because I also begin—to envy you! Come, let's make tracks for the house; I shall have huts enough to look at when I go back to the place that you need never see again."
"But I mean to see it again," said Jack as he locked up. "I intend to take my wife out, one of these days; we shall expect to come on a long visit to Carara; and the greatest treat you could give me would be to let me ride my old boundaries and camp in my old hut for a week!"
"Nonsense; you stay where you are," was the squatter's only comment. He seemed depressed; his cynical aplomb had quite deserted him. They returned in silence to the house.